Steal Away [Mass Market Paperback]

Katharine Clark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 1999

Rachel Stark is about to live every parent's nightmare: Her nine-year-old son, David, is snatched off the street in broad daylight with no apparent motive and only one clue--his red bicycle lying on the side of the road. Now, already under the strain of a troubled marriage, Rachel must channel every ounce of strength into a desperate search for David.

Into this emotionally charged scene arrive Rachel's recently divorced sister, a bombshell who conceals explosive secrets; a by-the-book detective, infuriating in his cold detachment; and a deceptive "saint" of the Missing Child Foundation, who harbors his own hidden agenda. . . .

And through it all there is David, still missing, and crying out to be found. But are Rachel's fleeting visions of her terrified child something real or the cruel trick of a mother's heart consumed with love and fear?

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Former Maine assistant attorney general Katharine Clark writes a lively series about a tough private detective called Thea Kozak (Death at the Wheel, Death in a Funhouse Mirror) under her Kate Flora pseudonym. Now comes this timely and very suspenseful thriller about such hot-button issues as surrogate fatherhood, AIDS phobia, and people who manipulate the missing children epidemic.

When 9-year-old David Stark disappears from his Massachusetts home, leaving behind on the roadside his new red bicycle, it touches raw nerves in several characters: David's over-protective mother, Rachel (who feels a strong psychic bond with her only child); his cold and supercilious father, Stephen (who isn't the boy's natural father--a sperm donor was involved); his jealous and mean-spirited aunt, Miranda (who gave away the family secret code, thus helping the kidnapper); an apparently unfeeling local detective; and the too-smooth head of a national missing children's foundation.

Clark manages to keep us interested in even her unsympathetic characters as the plot unfolds. We see David being kept alive but in dire danger and learn why he was chosen to be the victim of this particular crime. If at times the author seems to rely too much on every parent's darkest fear for her emotional energy, she also is sharp enough to involve even the childless or the misanthropic in the twists of her story. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

In this tricky thriller about the search for a kidnapped child, Clark gives her readers lots to think about. Why does Detective Gallagher, the police officer assigned to the case, seem so uninterested in the abduction? What's going on between the boy's father and his sister-in-law? Is there really a psychic bond between mother and child? And why, exactly, would anyone kidnap nine-year-old David Stark? While these questions sometimes seem designed to distract one's attention from a somewhat threadbare plot, they serve their purpose, and most readers will find themselves zipping back and forth among the puzzles, wondering whether this character knows more than he (or she) is telling, whether that character has a hidden agenda, hardly noticing that, for several rather lengthy periods, nothing much seems to be happening. While some mystery readers might find the novel a little unsatisfying, fans of family-crisis novels featuring realistic characters in tough situations (by writers like Judith Guest, for example) should be well pleased. David Pitt --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Fawcett (November 2, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449003191
• ISBN-13: 978-0449003190
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,188,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A strong plot undermined by the subplot of weak wife and unf, February 9, 1999

By 

Patricia Miletich (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Steal Away (Hardcover)

Like most readers, I was attracted by the nightmare of a mother dealing with a stolen child. Several improbable plot devices (ESP and and the sperm donor dying of AIDS) made even this potentially gripping plot weak. But, what irritated me was the fragile mother who could not seem to be critical of her grossly philandering husband who has sex with her sister in the kitchen many times while she is upstairs. The mother does not even ask her sister to move out and barely reacts when she walks in on her husband and sister. She does say something to her husaband--his reply is that he is a "horny prick." Oh, well! Everyone in the book knows her husband and sister are having sex and when one character asks her why she sticks with him her answer is that marriage includes even the tough times. The husband never makes any effort to reform, shows her no respect and it is left unresolved. I'd prefer a stronger heroine.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A real page-turner., December 15, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Lexington, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Steal Away (Hardcover)

Don't start reading Katherine Clark's STEAL AWAY if you have pressing responsibilities because you won't be able to put it down. Katherine's portrayal of a mother in search for her lost child is both chilling and believable, and the mother, Rachel, is very real--she's flawed, and she knows it, but nothing is going to stop her until she finds her son. The book pulls the reader back and forth between two compelling questions: why did David get kidnapped and will Rachel find him in time? It's great.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not suspense -- Aggravation, July 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Steal Away (Hardcover)

This was one of the absolute worst -- and most annoying -- cast of characters I've ever had the misfortune to stumble across. The heroine is a weak, 'poor me' whiner who I now firmly believe deserved everything she got just by virtue of her own 'talk-show mentality' choices. Her husband is a self-serving, egotistical, condescending jerk who's sleeping with his own sister-in-law in his own house, and his idiot wife can't even manage to summon enough outrage to stop petting his poor pounding forehead. By the middle of the book I was sincerely hoping that whoever stole the astoundingly unimaginative and inept kid would come back in the middle of the night and kill the whole family, just to put them -- and me, as the reader -- out of my misery. Have women's expectations really sunk so low that betrayals by husbands, sisters and mothers are considered the norm now and are perfectly acceptable quality traits in the hero? And that heroines are just as dense and pathetic at the end of the book as they are in the beginning? Ugh. A major exercise in frustration.